


"I'm scared"

by Kate88



Series: Striketober 2020 [8]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26898370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate88/pseuds/Kate88
Summary: This follows on immediately from "Is something bothering you?"
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: Striketober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948660
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47





	"I'm scared"

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on immediately from "Is something bothering you?"

He knows _exactly_ why she did it. He doesn’t blame her. It is fair for her to assume, given their almost-but-not-quite kiss on the steps of The Ritz, that some sort of action or conversation is now required.

_I’m scared._

Confronting the truth now is inevitable. He’s exhausted every other option. His desire for solitude and his fears for his business, he understands, are window dressing when all’s said and done.

He’s scared of her. Of what she could do to him. 

He’s scared of himself. Of what he could do to her. 

He’s scared of facing up to the fact that, for sixteen years, it wasn’t just Charlotte that was the problem. He’s scared of acknowledging, finally, that years spent observing Leda’s chaotic and unrepentantly awful relationships have fucked him beyond fixing. The memory of Robin’s face, pale and tear-stained, as she sat in the pub and told him she was leaving Matthew petrified him. What if he was the reason that she ever looked like that again? She could give him that power, and it was too much. Far too much. 

He’s scared of all the things she already knows about him. He is an open book to her now. She has formed a mental image of a young boy in too-short trousers, wiping his snotty nose. He wants to apologise to that boy for sharing their secrets. He wants to reassure him that the woman whose head he now sits in is kind, and gentle. She won’t laugh at him or tell anyone what she’s seen. She’ll look after him. She’ll be his biggest, strongest defender. His best friend. The fact that she knows that that boy was him- _is in him_ \- terrifies him more than anything else.

But they have reached the point of no return. The point at which it is easier to keep going than turn back. They have come so far and it’s only a little further. 

_Close your eyes…hold your nose…_

He opens his mouth and tells her the truest thing he’s ever told her.

“I’m scared”.


End file.
